Highway to Hell
by difinityone
Summary: If you were given the choice to go back in time and change things, would you? My answer: Hades yes.
1. Chapter 1

It was just a normal camp day. A few broken legs here, a cut-throat game of capture the flag there, nothing too special. That is, until _it_ happened. There I was, trying my best not to impale someone, when everything stopped. The arrow that had been an inch away from sending a poor Demeter kid to the Big House froze in midair. The swords clashing and the rumble of the climbing wall went silent.

"Hey kid!"

 _Almost_ silent. I turned around, already drawing riptide, to face the voice. _No way. No freaking way. This is not happening. I'll close my eyes, count to three, and wake up. This will all have been some weird totally-not-prophetic dream._

I closed my eyes and counted to three. I did not wake up. He smiled.

"Luke."

"Great, it worked. I wasn't sure if it would. I'll have to thank Angelo. Anyways, I don't know how much time I have here, so don't interrupt me." He glared at me when I opened my mouth, then continued. "Turns out when our dear relative was sent to Tartarus, his power didn't go with him. It stayed with me instead. And now I have the power to control time. Another fun fact: the fates can't deny the dead soul of prophecy's hero. Soooo, I'm sending you back in time. Well, I'm sending your _soul_ back in time. It will take over the body of your past self. Your quest, should you choose to accept it," he suddenly got very serious, "save them. As many as you can. Save everyone from the war who didn't deserve to die. Bianca, Ethan, Charlie, Silena. Everyone you can. The only rule," I was kind of weirded out by how intense he looked, "you can't let anyone know until I die. Not even Annabeth or Grover. The fates will take away your memories if they find out. Once I die, the events become locked in place, along with your memories. If you don't accept, then time will restart, and you will forget this ever happened. Can you do this?" He finally stopped and looked at me, waiting for an answer. Out of all the questions I had only one managed to blurt out.

"What about you?"

He looked out to the volleyball courts, where I was pretty sure Annabeth and Thalia were. "I can't be saved. My death ties it all together and keeps the Fates from interfering. It has to happen. Kronos can't be defeated without it. Can you do this?" He looked at me, his eyes burning hotter than Ares'.

A chance to save all my friends? No question. "Yes."

Luke's shoulders slumped in relief, and and for the first time I could remember, a real smile appeared on his face. He straightened up, and started chanting in Greek. For once my brain didn't translate it for me. I started to feel lighter, like gravity had gone and taken a vacation, but my body stayed rooted to the ground. My vision faded out. Just before everything went black, I heard him speak directly into my ears.

"Do me a favor. When you see Luke on the other side, kick his ass for me."


	2. Chapter 2

In all honesty, I wasn't expecting this. I thought I would have woken up in my bed back home, or at Yancy. Before my life went up in flames. Not standing inside the Hermes cabin (which I'm pretty sure a fire marshall would have something to say about) staring at Luke, of all people. I thought I'd at least have some time to myself to get a grip on reality, or whatever stood for it now. I mean I guess it made some weird sort of sense. If it all ended with Luke, it might as well start with him as well. I realized I'd been staring at him like an idiot and tried to remember what I'd said the first time around. Luckily, Annabeth saved me.

"This is Luke. He's your counselor for now." Looking at her now, I definitely recognized a hint of a blush. Go figure. I said the first words that seemed like something 12-year-old Percy might say.

"Where did you get your scar?" Stupid, _stupid._ Note to self: practice self-impersonation at some point. Seeing the anger from just that, it's a wonder nobody saw his betrayal earlier.

"Quest," he answered tersely. "Since you're undetermined, you'll be staying with the Hermes Cabin until you're claimed."

" _If_ you're claimed," some kid in the back yelled. All the other campers laughed. Apparently some things still happen. As Annabeth started dragging me away, I froze the air molecules into a thin layer of ice under the kid who yelled. I vaguely recalled he turned out to be a child of Nemesis.

After we were out of hearing range of the screams, Annabeth said, "Right, you have got to do better than that."

"What did I do?" I asked innocently.

"You can't just ask people where their scars are from. I can't believe I thought you were the one." She rolled her eyes.

"It's not like I said it was ugly. All I did was ask where it was from." I mean, it's true!

"A lot of campers have bad pasts that are hard to talk about. You don't ask them about it." That's it. I have to change _something_ , for gods' sake.

"Bad pasts like never being claimed? Bad pasts like their godly parent not being _important_ enough to earn a cabin? I may not have heard about the gods until today, but I still know what it feels like to wonder if your parent even knows you exist. Don't tell me you never felt like that." Whoomp there it is. All the anger at the Gods I had piled up over the years was now being released in a spectacular show of word vomit.

Annabeth opened her mouth in denial, then closed it. "There are ancient laws that keep our godly parent from talking with us. They can't go against the fates." She said.

I snorted. "Just because there's ancient laws doesn't mean they can't at least claim you."

Before she could respond, a very familiar voice yelled out, "Well, a newbie!" Wonderful. Clarisse. Though we were able to remain civil in the future, there was always some dislike between us. I was yanked from my thoughts when Clarisse asked me a question.

"Who's this little runt?" She was glaring at me like I had dissed her dad. Well, I had, just not yet.

I answered before Annabeth could. "Percy Jackson. Let me guess, daughter of Ares?" Annabeth looked at me, surprised. I shrugged. "The smell gave it away."

"That's it, prissy-"

"Percy."

"-I'm giving you the initiation." With that, she grabbed my neck and started dragging me to the girls bathroom. I struggled just enough to make it look like a scrawny kid with no training trying to fight. I would only have so many times with my powers before I would be expected to control them, might as well have fun while I could. Only this time I would be having a lot more fun. I started cranking down the temperature of the water to ice cold. Now I just had to wait for the perfect moment. As Clarisse slammed open the bathroom door and pulled me to a stall, I saw Annabeth out of the corner of my eye. Right, got to remember her. My head was pushed down into the toilet. Now!

The familiar pull in my stomach appeared, and everything happened at once. The shower heads exploded, the contents of the toilets flew out of the stall, and the faucet dials popped clean off. All of the freezing water in the room hit Clarisse and her friends, blasting them out of the building. Man, that felt good. The only dry spots in the room were me and Annabeth. Looking at me now, I'm honestly surprised nobody thought I was a son of Poseidon earlier. It seemed blatantly obvious in hindsight.

"So," I intelligently said.

"You," Annabeth pointed at me, "Are on my team for capture the flag."


	3. Chapter 3

Hi guys. So I don't actually own any of the PJatO or HoO books, so I have to use the library. Since I plan to integrate HoO into my story and I've only read TLH and SoN, I have holds on the rest of the series. As of writing this, I am next in line for MoA, 5th in line for HoH, and 3rd in line for BoO. As soon as I've read them all I plan to update. Don't worry about reading speed, I read SoN in a day. See you next time,

Diffy


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